After having both their black male cast members (one ham-fistedly) address it and later, show runner Lorne Michaels also sort of address it, Saturday Night Live took advantage of the one black woman they had in the room – guest host Kerry Washington – and tackled their lack of black lady problem.

Naturally, it was with jokes. Here’s the sketch if you haven’t seen it.

In the sketch, Jay Pharoah’s Barack Obama “finally” gets to see his Michelle, in the form of Kerry Washington, but it quickly shifts to a visit from “Oprah” and Washington is goofily rushed off for a costume change while SNL runs a word crawl explaining how they have no other black women on the show to play these parts, so Washington must play all of them. The skit ends with Washington off-screen complaining about her efforts to get into a “Beyonce” costume, then later MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton walking on the stage to lament that we all have learned nothing from this as usual.

For me, it got a B- for effort. At least they addressed it. But my concern that in all the discussion over SNL’s diversity problem is it leaves the impression that SNL should be more diverse for diversity’s sake, for racial point scoring or because black people deeply care about SNL (most truly don’t). No, the real reason why SNL should shoot for greater diversity – not just in the form of black female comedians, but Hispanics, Asians or pretty much anyone who is not either a white male resident of the Eastern corridor – is because it would make SNL a more interesting, better, funnier show.

SNL needs diversity for SNL’s sake.

While SNL manages to slap together some things it can make fun of week in and week out, there are a whole host of things they can’t make fun of simply because they lack diversity. They can’t parody Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Tyra Banks, ABC’s “Scandal” (or Kerry Washington), they can’t touch the entirety of the BET Network family, they can’t do a decent “Grey’s Anatomy” parody (unless they just ignore the Asian, black and Hispanic cast members), they can’t make fun of any reality show with a majority black cast when that’s some of the most mockable television in history, they can’t touch Beyonce, Rihanna, Ciara, Nicki Minaj or any black female singer no matter her status, tennis superstars Serena and Venus Williams are beyond their reach, they can’t touch any issue that’s ever involved Latino people – from Sofia Vegara to politics to Univision – and they’re the fastest growing minority group in this country. Also most issues involving international relations, unless it’s European relations, can’t be made fun of. So no geopolitical sketches about China, Japan, India, Mexico, South America or the Middle East … ever.

This is a lot of comedic material SNL has to pretend like doesn’t exist. When was the last time you saw a decent music video parody (since most popular music involves lots and lots of black people)? It can’t happen, they can’t even write it, because they lack so much diversity. And it keeps some parody’s from ringing true – like Kenan Thompson’s “What’s Up With That” sketch that is supposed to take place on BET, yet Kenan was the only black person on the show and the entire thing feels like it was created by someone who never watched one second of BET (all the guests on “What’s Up With That” are almost always white and are always the kind of white people you’d never see on BET, like Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham.) I didn’t even realize it was supposed to be making fun of the network’s late night programming at first, which used to consist of comedian Mo’Nique, who SNL also has to pretend doesn’t exist because they have no one to play her if Kenan now refuses to put on a wig.

But if you need a bunch of guys to play actor Matthew McConaughey – as they joked in the skit – SNL has white dudes on lock. Of course, even the “type” of white guy SNL gets could use some diversity since they only seem to employee Midwesterner-who-moved-to-the-East-coast, East coaster and Jewish East coaster. The whole show pretty much pretends like the South doesn’t exist (and gee, everyone knows there’s nothing funny about the South … except everything) because there aren’t many people who actually understand the South from first-hand experience working on the show.

Now, none of this would matter if the only people in the world who watch television are white guys who are into former Groundlings and UCB improv performers, but the problem is SNL has to ignore not just black or Latino culture – they’ have to ignore popular culture. They have to ignore reality. They have to pretend it is still 1984 and Ronald Reagan is president and Madonna is the biggest star and it’s no-big-deal if they have no one to parody Michael Jackson. They have to exist in a time before hip hop took rock music’s mantle as the number one American brand of music. They have to live in a time before NBA players wore baggy shorts. And all that makes the show markedly less hip and funny. Because young black, white and Latino people – their audience – are often watching and consuming a diverse array of media. They are complaining about Lil Wayne rapping on a horrid Paris Hilton song, mocking the fact that Rihanna can’t be bothered to show up for her tour dates and twerking badly along with Miley Cyrus. They’re watching “The Daily Show” and “Key and Peele” on TV while waiting until the next day to see if the SNL clips were any good on YouTube. They all like to make fun of “Love and Hip Hop Atlanta’s” Stevie J., get into shows with diverse casts like “Glee” or “American Horror Story” while live tweeting award shows.

If and when SNL recruits a black female cast member I’ll be happy that a likely long suffering black performer got some work, as it is still hard out there for black comics, actors, writers and directors to find that elusive steady paycheck or launching pad. But ultimately I won’t feel like SNL did anything for me personally or black people. SNL will be saving themselves. Whether Lorne Michaels cares or not, the times have changed and no one would be so judgmental of his casting choices if it weren’t for the fact he’s allowed 15 different versions of the same white guy to crash and burn on his show and fade into obscurity for every Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon.

Maybe it’s time to let some other folks fly or die for the sake of a funnier show.

You seemed to have missed the point of jay and Keenan’s comments, the skit and this article. You can’t do certain people and skits if you don’t even have the cast to play the parts. You can’t put in Keenan in a dress in order to play every black woman in the spotlight. When it comes to writing having access to different perspectives that come from people of different backgrounds (racial, geographical, age, income, family structure, etc) is how you keep the sketches fresh and hit all sorts of topics. It also helps to hit the right notes and keep the characters authentic. No made up weird speaking like “You better don’t.” if you can get some people in the writing room who have access to people who have a better understanding of those being portrayed in the sketches.

Tracey

I’m pretty sure that they are addressing it by actively seeking out a new black lead at least that is what the scrolling message on the skit said. Unless they are just trying to appease people and assuming that we will forget what has been said there will probably be a new cast announcement in the next few months and a writers change as well. It may come in the form of the same person as many cast members get to act as writers.

Tracey

I am a little confused. How can one paragraph say “But my concern that in all the discussion over SNL’s diversity problem is it leaves the impression that SNL should be more diverse for diversity’s sake,… No, the real reason why SNL should shoot for greater diversity –…” but then the next sentence after that says ”
SNL needs diversity for SNL’s sake.”?

I am also wondering if anyone really watched it because the eact point is that they recognize the holes in their stories due to losing Mya Rudolph and not keeping at least one black woman in rotation and overusing Keenan. They specifically stated that they are doing what they should have been doing all along and that is looking for at least one woman to take that spot instead of casting yet aanother white dude.
When they have the right host that show can still be funny but I really look forward to seeing who they’ve chosen and maybe some creative ideas from people who don’t want to wait on one show to change the current look of televised sketch comedy. Woo hoo.

http://blackmothering.wordpress.com yardyspice

I’m sorry but the sketch wasn’t very funny to me but maybe it’s because I find it hard to laugh at my own expense. I mean SNL had a guy dress in black face and nobody got mad! SMH